We didn’t try to do as much on our second day back in Singapore. Our tour bus tickets were good for 2 days; so we rode around some more, this time getting off to see a few of the sights. It also gave us a chance to get better pictures of things we didn’t get the first day. I got a photo of the Royal Thai Embassy. It’s a nice compound in a wealthy area; but the narrator told us that its main claim to fame is that the property was originally bought be King Rama IV of Siam. Yes, that King of Siam, the one from the musical.
The highlight of the outing was stopping at Merlion Park and seeing the merlion up close. As I mentioned before, the merlion is the symbol of Singapore, so everyone comes to take their picture with it. The park is on the shore of Marina Bay, directly across from the Marina Bay Sands hotel, so we could see it from our window.
The statue is 8.6 meters high and was made in 1972. The esplanade was built later and the statue was moved to its present location in 2002. She, (the tourist board says the merlion is female), shoots a jet of water out into the bay.
Like the “holding up the Leaning Tower” photos, here the popular tourist photo is to stand so that the jet of water appears to be going into your mouth or into your open hand. This causes congestion at the couple of spots where that angle is possible. We opted for the water shooting over our heads.
Of course we couldn’t resist getting a little one to bring home. Ours doesn’t shoot out a stream of water.
The rest of the day we relaxed and enjoyed hanging out at the hotel.
My Global Wanderings 